Whitefox Technologies Receives Major Boost for Ethanol Production

CALGARY, Canada, June 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Whitefox Technologies Canada Ltd. (Whitefox Technologies) has received a further C$1 million payment from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) towards the final milestone of its project to develop and demonstrate its container-based membrane ethanol dehydration system.

In May 2004, SDTC, an arm's-length foundation created by the Government of Canada, committed up to $6M to support the project led by Whitefox. This commitment is based on the successful completion of milestones as determined in the funding agreement between Whitefox and SDTC. Whitefox Technologies' achievements have demonstrated the significance of its membrane technology and production process. This payment will allow the company to optimise the system further and demonstrate the application of membrane dehydration to various production streams.

The new system will be used at the industrial ethanol production facility of Pound-Maker Agventures Ltd in Lanigan, Saskatchewan which received $8.4 million in 2009 from the Government of Canada's ecoENERGY for Biofuels program.

The funding validates Whitefox' achievements to date and endorses the benefits of membrane based ethanol dehydration technology over conventional technologies with the aim of making it the technology of choice for efficient ethanol production.

"Our Government is committed to supporting clean energy technology in Canada as an effective measure to protect the environment and create high-quality jobs for Canadians," said the Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources. "Improving the efficiency of biofuel production will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants while sustaining economic growth and development."

Dr. Vicky Sharpe, President and CEO of SDTC, said: "Finding ways to make the production of ethanol more cost-effective is crucial for the wide-spread adoption of alternative fuels. The technology being developed by Whitefox could replace the unreliable and inefficient conventional ethanol dehydration approaches, resulting not only in lower operating costs, but also in reduced GHG emissions and improved air quality."

Dr. Stephan Blum, Chief Technology Officer at Whitefox Technologies, said: "We are seeing an increased demand for de-centralised small scale ethanol production so we believe this project will be an exciting development for this growing part of the ethanol market. Whitefox is grateful to SDTC for its continued support over the years for the technology we have developed. We also want to express our appreciation for Pound-Maker's continued support of our technology. In this final milestone we will be installing the membrane system to dehydrate the water-rich rectifier overheads, the various regenerate and recycle streams and fusel oil side draws as a way to increase output capacity, reduce energy and water consumption as well as other operating costs."

Brad Wildeman, CEO of Pound-Maker, says that "the recent developments prove the concept we developed over 20 years ago to make Pound-Maker the pioneer in making local production of ethanol and cattle a model for agricultural areas in Canada."

Whitefox Technologies' product renders plant size irrelevant as the modular technology can be scaled from small integrated systems of around 1 million litres per year to large ethanol facilities with 100s of millions of litres of output per year. The container-based approach provides the industry with efficient and standardized systems for small to medium scale operations, for existing producers as well as new build plants.

For further information please contact Andy Lines or Chessie da Parma at Media House International on +44(0)207-710-0020. For more general inquiries, please see the SDTC website - http://www.sdtc.ca/ - and the Whitefox Technologies website - http://www.whitefox.com.